members of the generation that came of age after World War II who, supposedly as a result of disillusionment stemming from the Cold War, espoused forms of mysticism and the relaxation of social and sexual inhibitions.
Also, beat generation.
Origin
1950-55; apparently beat, though the sense intended by earliest users of the phrase is not clear; the association with beatitude later made by Jack Kerouac is probably fanciful
British Dictionary definitions for Beat Generation
Beat Generation
noun (functioning as singular or pl)
1.
members of the generation that came to maturity in the 1950s, whose rejection of the social and political systems of the West was expressed through contempt for regular work, possessions, traditional dress, etc, and espousal of anarchism, communal living, drugs, etc
2.
a group of US writers, notably Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William Burroughs, who emerged in the 1950s